*This story has been updated to include clarifications regarding Senate Bill 67.

 

Something has changed in the operations of law enforcement and the judicial courts in Chilton County.

Officers are stretched thin, and sentences for convicted felons have become apparently lax.

The public has voiced concern, and representatives of the legal system and its enforcement are responding.

The simplest answer? It’s hard to fasten handcuffs when the hands of law enforcement, prosecutors and judges are tied.

The challenge is reportedly statewide.

An indicated rise in Chilton County crime since the 2015 Alabama Sentencing Reform Act, which is also known as Senate Bill 67 and went into effect in 2016, suggests the bill is to blame.

Chief Deputy District Attorney C.J. Robinson of the 19th Judicial District and Chilton County Sheriff John Shearon believe as much.

Faced with the possibility of the federal government taking over regulation, should the system fail, the bill strives to reduce prison populations by incarcerating long-term only criminals deemed violent by sentencing scores.

“It’s like a balance,” Robinson said of the scores. “Each crime has a specific designation of points, and if you’re over a certain number of points, then you go to prison.”

But only then.

“The criminals know this, and they’re losing respect for the law, and they’re losing respect for judges and prosecutors,” Robinson said. “The problem is the judge doesn’t have the ability to send them to prison like he had in the past.”

Today, under the bill and yet with prisons still bursting at the seams, criminals who are incarcerated on nonviolent charges are released much sooner than in years prior to the act.

Shearon demonstrated the changes with two stacks of CCSO case reports. The first presented cases prior to the prison reform act and rested at about 1.5 centimeters tall. The second presented cases during the time of the act and rested at almost 1 inch tall.

“This is a ‘Good Ole Day’ stack,” Shearon said of the first. And of the second, “This is the nightmare we’re living in now.”

Convicted felons who would have typically served five to 15 years in prison prior to the bill are now being released on parole after about one year on average, reports reveal. As a result, the same individuals are being arrested and rearrested after committing the same or similar crimes.

Robinson said others have been convicted in prior sentences for violent crimes but are released due to the nonviolent nature of the crimes they are currently incarcerated for.

“I think they’re trying to do the best they can with what they’ve got, but I just don’t know if things could be worked out some other way,” Shearon said of legislation. “But kicking people out of prison who don’t need to be out of prison is not the way to do it.”

The following is a comparison of two similar Chilton County cases pulled from Shearon’s stacks, the first handled prior to the prison reform act and the second handled after the act:

• Before: A case with two charges of Theft of Property and two charges of Burglary received a sentence on June 10, 2005. The man was released on parole 12 years later on Sept. 26, 2017.
• After: A subject in a case involving Receiving Stolen Property (deemed a misdemeanor by Shearon) and three second-degree Burglary charges went to prison on May 11, 2017 and was paroled out of prison on Jan. 8, 2018.

“Do you see the difference?” Shearon asked.

Other post-act sentences include the following:

• Four Theft of Property charges: Sentenced Feb. 21, 2017 and released Feb. 5, 2018
• Possession of a Controlled Substance: Sentenced Dec. 7, 2016 and released Jan. 29, 2017
• Assault in the second degree: Sentenced June 21, 2017 and released Jan. 29, 2018
• Theft of Property: Sentenced Aug. 31, 2017 and released Jan. 29, 2018

“Everybody on these crimes (stacks) are one crime away from being a violent person,” Shearon said. “All it takes is somebody coming in, breaking in a house and a woman’s there by herself — they’re going to rape her, they’re going to kill her … if they’re messed up, or whatever the case may be.”

Hands are tied and continue to meet new challenges arising from the act, Robinson said.

“It’s made our job a lot more difficult,” he said. “I think it’s made our community a lot more at-risk because you have people who need to be incarcerated, but we don’t have the ability to do it anymore.”

 

The Alabama Sentencing Reform Act can be reviewed online at legiscan.com.